BLASHFIELD, Edwin Howland, painter, born in New York, 15 December 1848. He was prepared to enter Harvard at the Boston Latin school, but during his course of study there developed a taste for art so pronounced that it was decided to send him abroad. He studied and painted for ten years in Paris, and then, in pursuit of his profession, made five visits to Italy, several pedestrian trips through Switzerland, and spent some time in Germany and Belgium. His studio is in New York, and when he is in the United States his summers are passed at Little Compton, Rhode Island He is a member of the society of American artists, an associate of the national academy, and a member of watercolor and pastel societies. His favorite subjects are figures, with carefully studied landscape or architecture. Historical subjects and portraiture, with particular devotion to accuracy of detail, also claim his attention. Some of his principal paintings are: "A Poet" (Paris salon, 1876); "Toreador" and '" Monseigneur" (1877) ; "The Augur" 0878) ; "A Roman Emperor" (1879); "The Fencing-Lesson*Roman Ladies" (1880) ; mid "The Besieged," a fine picture, has been exhibited in the royal academies of London and Edinburgh; at the national academy, Dublin; and at Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, and Glasgow. He has been very successful in the execution of large canvases for the interior decoration of some of the finest private houses in New York city.